Are the Washington Commanders ready to win in 2023? Ron Rivera had an interesting answer to that question ahead of practice on Wednesday from training camp in Ashburn about the team's culture.
"I think there's a maturity you have to have. Certain type of growth that points to doing things the right way," the Commanders head coach said. "A lot of times it's 'You have to you have to you must, you gotta' now it's 'hey, we want to.' And that I think [Terry McLaurin] was alluding to, these are things these guys want to do, these are the things that is real pleasing to me. I mentioned it yesterday if you look out there and look at the guys after practice there's no coaches out there, these are the guys after practice. And when you start getting pods of guys, positional groups, working together, working with themselves, trying to help one another get better as a unit, that's probably the biggest sign of growth is that they understand now how important it is, what it takes.
"And really, again, it's them taking ownership. That used to be one of the things I used to remember Mike Ditka always harping at us about taking ownership. Talking with Coach [Joe] Gibbs, one of the things he recognized was back in the day when guys took ownership of themselves he said everything from doing little extra things to just hanging out together as a group, those were special. So that's what you look for. And when you start seeing these those things... that's what you wanna see."
For Kevin Sheehan, it is notable that Rivera appears to be pointing to a newfound maturity (which had been a problem in Rivera's eyes in the past) among the Commanders, especially after he spent the first few years of his coaching tenure attempting to foster and grow a proper culture of accountability around the team.
But if Rivera is talking about culture and camaraderie about things, Sheehan said you gotta make all of this pay off in wins.
"I believe him. It's not that I don't believe him. But it doesn't matter unless they win," Sheehan said.
To listen to Rivera's comments and Sheehan's full thoughts on this listen on the audio player above beginning around the 19-minute mark.
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